Ink's Notes:

Hello everyone! We have a bit of a shorter chapter today, so I was able to get it to you a little faster than I normally am... maybe I'll be able to keep up this pace? That would be nice!

This week's chapter is a few short drabbles about Sakura's friends reacting to Marco, but rest assured there are bits and pieces that will be important in the future. Never discount any details you read, that's something I've learned!

Anyway, on with the chapter!

Chapter Eight

About a week after they had returned to Konoha, Sakura was out on a leisurely walk with Marco gliding overhead, observing the city streets from above. She'd been teaching him how to speak, and much to her delight his progress was actually rather fast. It seemed he still remembered how, he just needed help with pronouncing words through a beak instead of a mouth.

"Yoi!" Marco called from above. "Bushy brows large and small spotted, one o'clock!" Sakura flinched internally. 'Bushy brows' was Marco's shared nickname for Guy and Lee, and 'large' or 'small' indicated which of the two he was talking about.

Three days after they got back, word had already spread around her circle of friends and their team leaders about how she and Marco had defeated an A-Rank missing-nin with relative ease. She had been all but ambushed by Guy and Lee, asking if they could borrow Marco for a training exercise. Marco, not seeing the harm in it, had agreed to give them a metaphorical hand.

He had come back at the end of the day looking exhausted and exasperated, and had sworn off of all contact with them for the next few days.

Sakura was about to change their course when the two shinobi in question noticed and approached her. She heard Marco sigh overhead before he flew down and landed on her shoulder.

"Yosh! Good morning, Sakura-San!" Lee greeted, grinning brightly while giving a thumbs up.

"And good morning to you too, Marco!" Guy added, posing in the same way.

"G-Good morning," Sakura greeted, doing her best not to show how awkward this was for her.

"Hello," Marco followed suit, lifting a wing in a gentle wave.

"I see that Marco's speech lessons are coming along well!" Lee grinned. "Would he like to join us for another training session?"

Sakura turned to the bird on her shoulder, who was giving his best subtle pantomime of 'please no I will do anything just get us out of here'. She awkwardly looked back at the matching student and teacher. "Um… Marco and I have somewhere to be in a few minutes," Sakura quickly lied. She hoped the excuse was good enough to get them out of this situation.

"Yosh!" Guy was suddenly fired up, and Sakura could swear she saw flames burning around him. "Let's make it a challenge! We'll see who can get there fastest!" He turned to Lee. "What do you think, Lee?"

"I think it's a great idea, Guy-Sensei!" Lee smiled brightly at his teacher, then turned towards Sakura and Marco. "What do you think, Sakura-San?"

Sakura and Marco were both gone, a log in their place.

"Sakura-San? You can't leave like that, we don't know where the finish line is…"

Ino had heard from Kiba that Sakura had a new pet bird, so she took some time off from working at the flower shop and all but dragged her teammates over to Sakura's apartment and nearly broke the door down with her incessant knocking so she could meet the avian in question.

She faintly heard Shikamaru mutter 'How troublesome' behind her, but ignored him when a very male voice said to hold on a minute.

"Sakura! Guests!" the voice called behind the door.

"Tell them I'll be a minute!" Sakura's voice was muffled compared to the male voice.

"She'll be a minute," the male voice relayed through the door.

A few minutes later, Sakura answered the door, her hair slightly damp. "Ino! Shikamaru! Choji! I wasn't expecting you!" she greeted, opening the door fully to let them in. The trio entered and Sakura closed the door after them. "Can I get you anything? Something to eat or drink, maybe?"

"Some food would be nice," Choji nodded, and Sakura moved over to the kitchen to get something for him.

Ino scanned the room, not seeing any men. "Whose voice was that earlier, Sakura?" she asked, a sly smile crossing her face. "You're not hiding a boyfriend from us, are you?"

Sakura sputtered uselessly for a moment before getting ahold of herself. "What!? No! That was Marco!" she yelped, pointing to the bird that was sitting on the table before resuming her hunt for food.

"Yoi," Marco greeted, lifting his wing in a wave. "It's nice to meet friends of Sakura who use the door."

"…Um, nice to meet you too," Choji frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

Sakura sighed. "Naruto keeps coming in through the window, despite the fact that Marco pecks him half to death every time he does," she groaned, producing a bag of chips for Choji, who began eating them. "Marco, the blonde girl is Ino, the one with the pineapple hair is Shikamaru, and the one eating is Choji. Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, this is my pet phoenix, Marco."

Marco locked eyes with Shikamaru, and in that moment he felt like they had some sort of spiritual connection and the bird pitied him, though for the life of him he couldn't imagine what or why that was.

Ino spent the rest of the afternoon chatting to Sakura, while Shikamaru and Choji helped Marco practice speaking. When they left, Marco told Sakura that these were his favorite of her friends so far, as they didn't seem nearly as eccentric as some of her other friends. Her thoughts drifted to Naruto and Lee, and she felt herself agreeing with him.

Hinata wasn't really sure what to think of the bird. Naruto didn't like him, but he seemed nice enough when she interacted with him in passing. Kiba seemed enthusiastic about the bird's presence, while Shino didn't seem to have an opinion of him either way.

She had decided to steel her courage, and found herself knocking on the door to Sakura's apartment. It wasn't long before Sakura opened it, Marco perched on her shoulder as usual.

"Hinata? What are you doing here?" she asked, confused by the girl's presence.

"I, um… I wanted to get to know Marco," Hinata meekly said, fidgeting with her hands. "He… seems nice, but Naruto's always complaining about how he attacks him… and…" Her face flushed, and Sakura smirked, stepping aside to let her in.

Sakura took a seat at her table, and Hinata sat down across from her while Marco hopped off of Sakura's shoulder and landed on the table. "Um… Marco?" she began. "Why do you attack Naruto?"

"Because he doesn't respect Sakura's privacy, yoi," Marco explained, lifting his wings in what Hinata assumed was a shrug. "He keeps coming in through the window and not knocking on the door, ignoring that she could be doing something private when he comes in. Plus, he's a bit obnoxious and loud-mouthed."

"Um… why is that such a big deal?" Hinata asked. Marco stared at her for a moment, before letting out what she could only guess was the bird equivalent of a sigh.

"It makes Sakura uncomfortable, yoi. I won't tolerate people who hurt or make my family uncomfortable."

Sakura seemed as shocked by his words as Hinata was. Marco considered her family? Was she… some kind of replacement for his previous family? Come to think of it, she hadn't really asked him much about his life before he'd become a bird…

Their thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Sakura got up and answered it, and was greeted by Kiba and Shino.

"Yo, Sakura! Is Hinata here?" Kiba asked.

"Yeah, why?" Sakura asked as Hinata made her way over to the group.

"The Hokage has requested our presence," Shino explained. "It's likely she has a mission for us."

Sakura nodded. "All right. Thanks for stopping in, Hinata."

"Um… thank you for having me," Hinata meekly smiled, before waving goodbye to Marco and leaving with her teammates.

Sakura closed the door once they'd left, then went and sat down again. "What sort of mission do you suppose they have, Marco?" she asked, resting her arms on the table.

"Yoi," Marco shrugged. "Probably an important one, though."

And so ends Chapter Eight! As I mentioned, it's a bit of a short one, but we're about to get into something rather important. And as I mentioned earlier, a few of these interactions have things hidden in them that'll likely be important later on. If there's one thing I've learned from One Piece, it's that no detail should be spared! I wonder if you can figure out what's going to come up later?

-Ink